Why do people believe in redistrubution of wealth and more taxes for the rich?

reply to post by wildtimes


I wasn't saying that our society, to a person, is this way. I was merely pointing out that this is a major problem. I'd be willing to be that, for every person like your husband, there are 5 who are unwilling to compromise and take the same job your husband took. The world needs more people who put their pride on the back burner when it comes to survival.

you, and your husband, are example of how we should all be

reply to post by Xtrozero

The biggest negative to a flat tax is it will basically kill charitable donations.

You do realize you are talking out of both sides of your head? If the system were more fair, there would not NEED to be Charitable Donations!!

If the large and wealthy corporations would HIRE people to WORK for them, those people would not be in NEED of "charitable contibutions".

Sheesh.

reply to post by Crakeur


And I agree with you on that. Thank you for the acknowledgment.
Yes, I, too know people who think "no, I won't work at that job". You know, I would sweep freaking FLOORS if it meant I had income. Mow lawns. Actually, that piddly job I had was offered to me after I volunteered to plant flowers at the organizations site.

It managed to keep our bills paid for about two months.

When the guy asked if I was interested, I said "well, YEAH!". When he apologized that it was only for two months at minimum wage I said, "It's better than zero! Thank you so much!"

So yeah. Anyway, thanks.

The politics of envy. “I don’t have it, so no one else should have it”.

I find it difficult to comprehend how people can become so fantastically rich and remain so fantastically selfish with their money.

However, there are many very rich people who donate vast sums to worthy causes. You may not like Bill Gates, but he has done more than most African governments combined to help people in Africa (Malaria).

Should we stop these people and rub out the ultimate reward for a lucky life and the industries they have nurtured and created and all the people who have been personally enriched along the way the way.

Regards

A better question, or rather set of questions:

1. Why do the super-rich continue to build wealth long after every conceivable need for now and two, three and more generations into the future has been met?

2. From where do people derive the right to unlimited wealth?

3. Why isn't the desire for excessive wealth seen as what it is, an addiction, and treated as such?

4. Why can't the super-rich say enough is enough and gracefully retire when they've reached, say a billion dollars in wealth?

5. Why isn't there a global cap on individual wealth?

Like it or not, wealth is a zero-sum game: the amount of wealth available at any given time is always finite, and for x number to be super-rich means that y must be poor. Capitalists tend to confuse potential wealth which iis infinite with actual or realized wealth, which is not.

They also neglect to either observe or mention that capitalism as currently practiced leverages future wealth and uses it in the present. Past capitalism was based upon exploiting reserve wealth such as forests, mineral wealth, fertile soil, labor, etc at an accelerated pace using ten year's resources in one to create the base for expansion. You can only do that for so long before you've used it up and must wait for natural processes to restore the resource., hence the move to leveraging future wealth.

The super-rich are being irresponsible due to their addiction to wealth-building and utter lack of self-control, not knowing when to say when, just like any other addict.

Voluntary economic retirement doesn't happen, so it must be forced, just like speed limits, fishing limits, hunting limits and a myriad of other limits we have placed upon shared resources for the good of society. The economy is a shared resource, and no one has a moral, ethical, or legal right to take unlimited amounts from it.

Just like the guy who drinks too much and becomes a social problem, people who are addicted to wealth-building create social problems and must be controlled by society since they can't or won't control their problem.

Originally posted by gwydionblack
I'm having a hard time here understanding the mentality of people. Most of my posts are long on here, but I am going to try to make this as short as I can so that people can enlighten myself (and others) as to their thinking.

I hear many people on ATS, around the globe, and in the Occupy Wall Street movements advocate more taxes for the rich and some even go so far as to say a "redistribution of wealth". I struggle to find where the belief in this comes from. Does it only come from people who don't have wealth or is it more wide spread?

Why should the rich be charged any more in taxes, simply because they make more money?

Wealth = political influence = modifications to the tax code that benefit the wealthy. i.e. Loopholes and histroically low effective tax rates, disproportionate to what the remainder of the citizenry pay.

Wealth = political influence = less regulation and prosecution of financial wrongdoing i.e; misleading middle class investors as to the nature of how their money is invested and the risks associated with those investments.

Wealth = political influence = unequal risk of investments, Wealthy vs. Everyone else. ie; the investment banks got rescued, bailed out, with an offensive amount of taxpayer money...after they lost tax an offensive amount of taxpayer money. They then set records for CEO pay, while not increasing hiring or lending money.

Wealth = political influence = convincing the Conservative ranks that eliminating special tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthiest is really a "Tax Increase" on the "Job Creators"...Despite the glaring fact that after repeated tax breaks targeted at the wealthiest and the largest amount of taxpayer money transferred directly to them in the form of bailouts...no jobs have been created.
Otherwise....

Wealth = Being able to convince a certain segment of the population that the wealthiest 1% must benefit most from the government, regulations, tax codes and subsidies than the rest of the population in order for thier self identified idealogy to be valid. Sad, but true, money can convince some people up is down, north is south.

Tidbit: Did you know that the Tea Party movement was formed to protest President Bush and the Bailouts of the banks and corporations? Interject money into the movement, play on their conservative roots and you now have a movement where the majority of it's members think President Bush was a great President.

SO...."the rich be charged any more in taxes, simply because they make more money?" No.

The "rich" should not benefit from a tax code written by the "rich".

The "rich" should play on an equal playing field as the other 99% without tax-loop holes, subsidies, taxpayer bailouts, tax breaks etc.

reply to post by apacheman


so, a man makes a billion dollars and then, what? he's supposed to keep it in non-income producing accounts? that'd be the only that the money would decrease over time.


good luck with that

reply to post by gwydionblack

The following references the corporate capitalists in the top 1%, not the local restaurant chain owners, heart surgeons, or philanthropists. Some of the top 1% are part of the solution as evidenced here.

In a nutshell, the American marketplace is an exclusive club. In this club you must pay your dues. It is not unfair for a person who benefited by his/her membership to pay more than the members who did not. If the majority of the members agree to this, then the wealthy who do not like can physically move. Not just outsource but move.

We are fooled into believing these people are "job creators" and important to our economy. The fact is they are largely harmful to our economy because, instead of hiring when they get a tax break, they hoard their money and take it out of economic circulation. You can actually directly blame the top 1% for some of the reason we have quantitative easing practices.

These welfare recipients (yes, they take more of your money than food stamp families) are robbing us blind and then crying on our shoulders for more handouts of our national wealth.

I don't hate them as I'm not so bad off myself but I wouldn't mind paying more than I do now knowing the guys above me on the food chain are too. And that complaint that the lower class pay nothing? Why should they?! They haven't benefited from the club!

reply to post by Crakeur


That does seem like a problem. Perhaps in the current system it is, and it would not be possible, but if corporations were regulated and the priorities of people changed to necessities rather than luxuries, I believe than a flat tax could work.

But fat chance of people changing priorities, huh?


reply to post by mastahunta


I'm not concerned for the wealthy, I'm concerned for humanity. I believe in fairness and equality in the chances we are given in life, while at the same tame being able to take those chances, gain from them, or lose from them respectively. It seems only fair that the rules be the same for everybody.


reply to post by Frogs


So in the end, the real culprit for the failed system is globalization. Indeed, the best bet would be to change the rules to employ more US citizens. Some work at relatively low wages is better than no work and zero wages, I do say.


reply to post by jtma508


You aren't bursting my bubble. I've known of the oligarchical state of the US for quite some time and I recognized that Capitalism has failed here because of government involvement. I still believe true Capitalism in its purest form is the best form of an economic system to promote advancement and freedom.



reply to post by GeorgiaGirl


I do think the FairTax would be much better, but I have a feeling that if it ever comes close to existing, that it will be done sloppily, and will exist on TOP of the income tax. This will only burden people more and help to line the pockets of politicians even further. It has to be done correctly to work, and honestly, in the current system, I don't see anyone EVER getting the income tax repealed - be in Ron Paul, Herman Cain, or anyone.

We can always hope, though.



reply to post by OLD HIPPY DUDE


Don't need to tell me twice about an even playing field. Being a small business entrepreneur has awakened my to the reality of competition with the big business. Even strategically placing myself away from their locations, I still find myself struggling to compete for business, but I do so only by keeping my prices cut throat low. It hurts me in the long run, but at the same time it is the only way to succeed in the current market.

Just remember, the super wealthy only control that stuff because we say they do. The people control it all and if ever we need something to preserve our life and happiness, we can always take it back.


reply to post by beezzer


What they are taking is our time, which equates to our well being. We all centralize that in the form of money. Rather than working in the field ourselves, we do other work so that we pay other people to work in the fields for us. A government is supposed to provide the conditions to which this system works fair and justly, and so, for their end and the expenditures, they take some of our times and work from us.

This, however, is not exactly how it works... but it is how it is supposed to work.

reply to post by Crakeur


Then he retires and enjoys life.

What's wrong with that?

Any income is taxed at 100% when the wealth has reached a billion dollars.

Again, again, and yet again I ask:

From where do you derive a right to unlimited wealth?

Won't someone please at least attempt to rationally answer that question?

reply to post by apacheman

1. Why do the super-rich continue to build wealth long after every conceivable need for now and two, three and more generations into the future has been met?

This a question of morals and ethics more than anything. To what possible end could so much money actually be? I haven't the slightest idea. However, I do know that a decent human being would be generous with his money to an infinite degree.

Even Bill Gates may be a saint to some, be he sure could part with a bit more to be quite honest.

2. From where do people derive the right to unlimited wealth?

This is a basic right in any free market. Once again it comes down to morals and ethics of a person as to whether or not they share that wealth.

3. Why isn't the desire for excessive wealth seen as what it is, an addiction, and treated as such?

Because it is a persons choice to get treated for an addiction, not the public's.

4. Why can't the super-rich say enough is enough and gracefully retire when they've reached, say a billion dollars in wealth?

Morals and ethics. The drive for more and more power.

5. Why isn't there a global cap on individual wealth?

That would be kind of ridiculous.



There need to be measures taken so that the wealthy business owners should have to return so much to the society in which the money was fostered. This does not necessarily mean that he should give his money away, but should have to use it within the country for employees and other expenditures.

The problem is that these corporate leaders are making money SELLING to Americans, and the only place their money is being spent is in foreign countries. Thus the United States is losing more and more of the money supply each year to foreign nations and people.

Perhaps a regulation on corporation should be along the lines as follows: That a percentage of any money made distributing your products in the United States, should not be allowed to leave the United States. It needs to be returned from the economy from whense it came.

The logistics behind it are sketchy, but I feel if in enacted it would work wonders. Corporations are only successful because US citizens are the most active consumers in the world. If not for us, there wouldn't be the record profits they they hold. So in exchange for our consumer base, they should have to have business on US soil.


Ultimately, once this is all said and done, the government should hoard up a large amount of the US money supply and publicly burn it in order to raise the value of the dollar to a more manageable standard.

Because it's easier to tax somone else which means it's easier to take someone and give to the "less fortunate" but what they fail to see it they never see that money which is why they keep taxing and taxing and taxing 1% pays over 40% of all tax revenue the government gets that 1% pays for all those social programs and they also pay those other people and there they are chanting death to rich people.

The don't get it and it's like talking to a brick wall.

I don't see why people think they are entitled to any wealth at all. We're not. Not until everyone is fed and sheltered and clothed does anyone have the right to make inordinate profits off of their corporate gains.

So yeah, I am for the 'redistribution' of wealth, if that's what you want to call it. But to be fair, the wealthy redistributed all the wealth to themselves originally and left hundreds of millions of people on this planet starving in the dirt. Only when everyone has enough to sustain themselves and to live a secure life will it ever be okay for someone to start thinking about profit.

As it is, those without money are so fascinated by the idea of someday having money that they continue to vote for people who will further policies that hurt the poor and help the rich, in the hopes that they will someday be rich.

Face it: money is not your God. If you get to the point where you stop believing in money as God, then you will realize that no one is entitled to wealth, even when they 'earn' it, because those people should be giving away their excesses to those who have none. Those who argue that rich CEO's should be taxed at a 'flat rate' are missing the big picture, which is that money is, in the grand scheme of things, the devil, and the rich should really be paying way huger amounts in taxes than the poor because the rich are obligated by morality and decency to feed the poor, not exploit them.

reply to post by gwydionblack


A basic right in the free market?

From where do you derive the right?

I see no legal right to unlimited wealth.

I could just as easily say the free market entitles me to as many wives as I can support, or as many slaves as I can buy, or to harvest as many organs from children as I need.

That is a specious argument.

reply to post by gwydionblack


Treatment for addiction is NOT entirely a person's choice, as witness the hundreds of thousands of people in court-ordered rehab when their addiction-driven behavior becomes a problem for society.

And make no mistake: the super-rich are wealth addicts, obsessive hoarders of money and wealth objects and apparently can't control their behavior. Since they can't or won't, society must.

reply to post by gwydionblack


Exactly why is a cap on global wealth ridiculous?

Is a cap on the number of fish you can catch or the number of deer you can kill or the number of wild turkeys you can take ridiculous?

Is a speed limit ridiculous?

Is limiting the number of votes a single person can cast ridiculous?

Are all the other limits placed on personal use of shared resources ridiculous?

Merely stating it is ridiculous is not an argument against it nor a justification for unlimited wealth.

Limits are placed on things when not having limits causes harm to others in society.

Unlimited wealth has demonstrably caused harm to society and therefore must be curbed.

Do you seriously want to live in a world of competing trillionaires?

Originally posted by apacheman
Then he retires and enjoys life.

some people enjoy working and some people manage to amass a fortune at an age that would leave them with far too much life ahead of them to sit around idling.

Originally posted by apacheman
Any income is taxed at 100% when the wealth has reached a billion dollars.

so, an innovator or business genius should not be able to do with the money he earns? Instead, you think that those with drive should support those without? that'll result in people keeping their wealth just below a billion dollars via all kinds of manipulations of the system. On the flip side, you're saying that those who don't have the means or the werewithall to make money should just live off the work of others. A twisted welfare system that is supported by the wealthy is not the answer.

Originally posted by apacheman
From where do you derive a right to unlimited wealth?

Won't someone please at least attempt to rationally answer that question?

were do you derive the right to limit ones potential? where do you derive the right to tell people they've done enough and they must, now stop.

Where would we be if your system of halting progress were in place? Folks like Steve Jobs would have stopped working years ago and some of our smartest minds would, instead, be rotting on yachts.


If you have the right to tell folks like Jobs he must stop working or watch as the money he earns is distrbuted to the masses, then he should have the right to say that he won't distribute his wealth to anyone who doesn't put in 50 hour work weeks, who isn't willing to hold down 2 jobs to support a family, if that's what it takes.

If you're going to limit one side, there must be requirements in place for the other half of your equations

Originally posted by gwydionblack

If, for instance, people weren't so massively addicted to entertainment and sports media, athletes and actors would not make so much money. Nobody is out there demanding that actors and athletes get paid less, but they would gladly advocate that teachers and private doctors gets paid more, not understanding that there is a level of payout that needs to be balanced using priorities.

Why are so many so clueless in this modern age?

The people you listed are not taking the majority of the worlds wealth.

There really are just 1% that hold the majority of wealth and power. When it is that far out of proportion then these people did not make this money in any ethical or moral way and are criminals that are protected because the massive sums of wealth make them above the law.

Use some common sense. This way of the old world ways have to end. These criminals are going to give it back and not dance on our backs EVER again.

They had thousands of years of doing this to us all. That will energy will be terminated by the end of 2012.

reply to post by apacheman


Just as much, there is no legal law against it.

As many wives as you would like - sure. Shouldn't be a law against it in the first place.
As many slave as you could buy - no. Not unless they were willing slaves. That goes against human rights.
As many organs from children - yes. So long as they are dead and you have been given permission to harvest from the consenting adult.

Unlimited wealth does not have a limit because it is incentive to the regulation of a free market. I suppose, however, if the limit for all would be a billion dollars, that would be the max cut off. But a whole mess opens with that can of worms.

For instance, if global wealth can not exceed a billion dollars, that means that no product can cost more than a billion dollars. Therefore, any advancements that take billions of dollars in research and development will no longer be plausible due to the wealth limit. If prices were leveled accordingly, sure, it might work, but the process of implementing a system would be nearly impossible due to the opposition it would cause by both the wealthy and the advantageous.

Not only would a cap place a limit on the wealthy, but it would place a limit on progress.

A cap is not necessary. The dollar is destroyed as it is, so what is necessary, is a currency swap or competing currencies, and sound business practices that will prevent corporations from exercising the ability to hoard money while still having a market in this country. It is the corporations that NEED this country's consumers, not the other way around, and it is time that government made legislation reflecting that.

Of course, current government IS practically a corporation, so revolution would be necessary to instill any of such changes.

Originally posted by Crakeur
reply to post by wildtimes

 

I wasn't saying that our society, to a person, is this way. I was merely pointing out that this is a major problem. I'd be willing to be that, for every person like your husband, there are 5 who are unwilling to compromise and take the same job your husband took. The world needs more people who put their pride on the back burner when it comes to survival.

you, and your husband, are example of how we should all be

I do not see any of the ultra-rich swallowing pride and taking less.

So why should we the people go without, the people that BUILT this nation and this world while the sharks keep feeding off OUR effort get a free ride during these times?

Are people really this far away from being human anymore?